2022 IB Diploma Extended Essays

How does Arundhati Roy explore the impacts of cultural values on the lives of individuals in ‘The God of Small Things’?

Part 2: ‘Love Laws’ and the Search for Human Connection

Roy explores how traditional Indian values control love, and how this impacts the formation of meaningful relationships, through the ‘Love Laws’. The traditional caste system dictates that people should only marry within their caste. This is explained in the novel through the Love Laws, that are defined within the novel to be “the laws that lay down who should be loved, and how. And how much.” (33). As Ammu and Velutha inhabit different castes, their sexual relationship is a defiance of the Love Laws and the caste system. Roy’s purposeful choice to describe this aspect of the caste system as ‘laws’ demonstrates that this cultural value is an imposition on the lives of people within Indian society, and that love is perceived as a societal practice for the benefit of society, rather than an idea based on real human connection. According to Bose, Ammu and Velutha’s deaths are representative of “punishment for transgression” of the Love Laws. While this could imply that their actions are immoral, Bose instead interprets Ammu and Velutha as martyrs. This is supported by the fact that Roy portrays Velutha’s death as a tragedy, as the narrator rhetorically questions, “Who was he, the one armed man? Who could he have been?” (217). By using the epithet of ‘the one-armed man’, Roy positions the reader to empathise with Velutha’s struggle. Additionally, Roy italicises ‘ could ’ to highlight how Velutha’s legacy was cut short by his death, further emphasising how, within the context of the novel, Velutha’s death is a tragedy. Furthermore, Velutha’s death is, from a literal perspective, caused by the police. When Ammu goes to the police station to make a statement about Velutha, the inspector says the police “[don’t] take statements from veshyas or their illegitimate children” (8), despite the police slogan being “ P oliteness O bedience L oyalty I ntelligence C ourtesy E fficiency” (8). Roy invites the reader to view the police slogan as ironic, emphasising the discriminatory nature of the police force. By explicitly bringing up Ammu’s caste position, the police are represented as explicitly discriminatory through caste

9